A Los Angeles man who pleaded guilty to illegally uploading nine Gun N' Roses songs onto his music site has dodged jail time.
Earlier this week a federal judge sentenced Kevin Cogill to a year's probation. He will also serve two month's confinement, have his computer activity monitored by the government, and record a public …

You can 'leak' rock albums?

What's more, IF you leak a rock album, the RIAA sees it as a 'felony'. A felony? Have they no sense of proportion at all? The men these people buy their Special White Powder from, are commiting a Felony. When Axl Rose beat up his ex-wife and treatened to killer, that was a felony.

But now this guy is going to "have his computer activity monitored by the government". Boy, this leaking of rock albums is srs bsnss! I wonder what arm of the Department of Homeland Security is in charge of monitoring Music Felons? If he was enjoying REAL 'Chinese Democracy', of course, he could get that level of service without ever having to listen to Gun'n'Roses!

4 Mathew White

Insane

Everyone should just boycott the album altogether, the album and any song on it. The guy should have been fined, not sentenced, and since when does the RIAA get to determine what is and is not a felony? Maybe we should get like a couple million people to protest outside their office(s)

@Dustin 2

big brother must be loved

The public service announcement which is part of Kevin's sentence shows that it is not enough for big brother to destroy all opposition to unlimited copyright: all opponents guilty of this thought crime have to be re-educated by the Ministry of Love and be made to broadcast public confessions. It's apt that it makes you think of China as a place of democracy in comparison. This is America, folks, and big business gets to decide which parts of the US Bill of Rights suit their interests.

Felony?!

Felony copyright violation? Oh come ON, why not just give him the death penalty and be done with it? Better yet, wipe out his family, root and branch. Can't have those evil file sharers passing on their bad genes!

Shite Album

What he was doing was pre-warning the world not to buy it, it's awful. As such his defense should have been that he was protecting law abiding citizens everywhere from being ripped off. There must be a law about that somewhere.

A-game acting?

So how does being forced into a public service announcement work? I would expect the acting to be umm... subpar. I know if I were forced into this I'd be pretty damned deadpan. Unless I'm supposed to be then I'd manage to Monty Python it up a bit hahahaha

@Daniel 1:"Have they no sense of proportion at all?" No the Recording Industry Ass. of America does not. They in all seriousness think distributing a song or 2 should be charged about as seriously as murder. They have seriously claimed in the Jamie Thomas case that fining $80,000 *PER SONG* is reasonable, in fact they wanted more. They've tried to pass bills permitting them to 1) Seize people's computers, even for 1 song. 2) DESTROY them (via distributing fatal (to Windows) viruses and worms via P2P). 3) Directly hack peoples computers to troll for information. No, not even just computers they suspect of distribution, ANY computer.

On the flip side, they (and the MPAA) both use "Hollywood Accounting" to make sure the artists they are supposed to represent will not actually get any money... the top tier gets some pay, the rest will only actually make money from going out on tour, not from 100s of thousands of album sales. And recently, the RIAA was pushing to get it so TOUR sales would be fed into them too!!! That got shot down right away though.

In conclusion, fuck the RIAA. Buy independent. If you "must" buy a RIAA album buy it used so the RIAA won't get your money.

about time i say this

I've been silent on the whole music piracy thing for quite awhile.

If these "artists" want the governmnet and courts to do their bidding perhaps the police need to look closer into the activities of them. We all know these bands are notorious for their drug use yet it's not very often that you hear about them running into problems with law enforcement over it.

Perhaps it's time big brother takes a closer look into how these bands conduct themselves and the images they are promoting.

If you compare this to someone like those that are basically famous for being high all the time an smoking weed everywhere it doesn't add up. What's a more serious problem here, drug use, the promotion of this lifestyle, or someone burning a very crappy album?

Stop buying music

This seems paltry

This seems paltry sentence for 18 songs and pre-release. Last case 24 songs came up and some lady was charged for a few million, which she can't pay. Why is this guy special? This clearly shows the RIAA and these lawsuits are a joke.